


A Lily in White

by MaraudingManaged



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Blood and Violence, Character Death, Dark, F/M, I mean it, Romance, Swearing, a bit OOC, no, not a HEA
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-22
Updated: 2019-09-02
Packaged: 2020-09-24 02:24:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 13,266
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20350831
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaraudingManaged/pseuds/MaraudingManaged
Summary: "He loved her. He loved her. Hermione Granger: this sharp, beautiful, whip-smart and powerful girl who happened to love him too. He, with the Dark Mark and painful bigotry. He with too many sins to bear - she loved him too.An impossible romance told in snapshots, in days, in moments; a story of love in the midst of the worst war the wizarding world has ever seen, and what might happen if two people make simple, but very different, choices.[Hiatus, for now, but not abandoned]





	1. The Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Written for TheMourningMadam’s Once Upon a Time Fairytale Fest with the inspiration/prompt story “When the Lilies Return”, which can be found at https://fairytalez.com/when-the-lilies-return/ 
> 
> Please note that this story is pretty grim, dark, and at times bloody. There is main character death and there is NOT a happy ending - there are also some slight liberties taken with characterisation in some aspects.
> 
> Don’t say you weren’t warned. 
> 
> Thanks eternal to my sounding boards/alpha/beta NotSoSirius92 & HollyBrianne who listened to my near constant whinging that I wouldn’t get this done when I decided to re-write the entire thing two weeks before the deadline.

_ _

**May 2nd, 1998**

** _ The Great Lake is burning. _ **

_That’s the mantra swirling in his mind as the final spells fly around him, as he ducks and weaves between scattered bodies littering the great, broken steps that were once the proud entrance to Hogwarts Castle. _

_His heart stops as a rogue green light flashes by, causing the fine strands of his hair to dance and singe, and then starts again a moment later as he flings his own curses and hexes with vicious abandon in return. Excessive force, really, for what is clearly a Death Eater who’s decided to try a last-ditch attempt at a kill before the Aurors or the Order bind them good and proper._

** _Stop._ **   
** _ Start. _**   
** _ Stop.   
Start. _**

_His feet catch on rubble and on softer, more malleable obstacles that move with him, tangle with his feet and send him stumbling. He doesn’t care to look - he** can’t** look - only move forward. Move, somehow, despite the fact that his world has utterly ended._

_The thought sends him rocketing faster towards the Forbidden Forest, away from the cheers of victory and spitting slurs. He’s dodging and leaping as brickwork tumbles across the grounds in a waterfall of masonry, until his foot latches too firmly against a chunk of the sandstone that forms too many of the castle’s towers to know precisely which it has come from. He tumbles forward and his knees crack against the hardened ground as he falls, doubling over, unable to look any longer. Unable to ** breathe**. _

_His bloodied, trembling hands tear at his throat, his face, his ruined shirt; his mouth wrenches open in a silent, grief-laden scream._

_Because she is ** dead**. And nothing - not whispered prayers to gods that aren’t listening, not even the spilling of his own blood - will bring her back. _


	2. The Meeting in Knockturn Alley

**17th August, 1996**  


He was sweating. 

It wasn’t from the rare hint of summer bestowed upon London, or the heavy robes he wore that were, really, far too warm for an everyday August outfit, but were the only ones he felt secure in. That offered some meagre protection from what he was certain were knowing stares, whispered reports to the Aurors dotted up and down the Alley watching shoppers with scrutinising, judging eyes. 

No, it was the burning, writhing mark on his forearm, granted to him a month earlier - barely having returned from Hogwarts to find that the Dark Lord had taken up residence in his home. The stabbing pains still hadn’t receded, and the thrill of anxiety that any time it twinged he was going to be summoned was a constant companion. 

He’d been given a task, of course; and whilst at first he’d felt proud and walked to the altar of the Dark Lord like the simpering fucking idiot he was, he knew better now. 

It hadn’t taken Draco long, hearing his mother’s sobs and pleas for forgiveness on behalf of his father as he rolled and screamed and wept and pissed himself on their dining room floor, for the message to really _ sink in_. Sins of the father were well and truly visiting upon the son, and he’d walked right into the trap. It was there on his arm for all to see, if they cared to look.

It truly was life or death. Kill, or be killed. He was absolutely, utterly fucked… unless he managed to kill Albus bloody Dumbledore and install Death Eaters in Hogwarts. 

He moved towards Knockturn Alley with entirely affected ease, but carefully watched the street to ensure he wasn’t seen by the wrong sort and _ was _ seen by the right. If his whereabouts got to the Dark Lord, he hoped he would be spared his wrath a little longer. Long enough to work out exactly what the bloody hell he was supposed to do - or rather, how he was supposed to do it. 

“Right, I’ve had just about enough - don’t you ‘Mione’ me, Ronald Weasley! And what exactly do you plan to do with that, Harry James Potter? You aren’t seventeen for another _ year. _” 

Draco only vaguely heard the shrill lecturing of Hermione Granger - not taking in what she said, of course, because it was usually utter bollocks or swottery - but the pitch alone was high enough to draw dogs, he was certain. Still, he had a job to do; he simply didn’t have time to worry about the petty squabbles of Gryffindor’s twat squad any longer, as amusing as they might have been in the past. 

His lack of focus on the street around him, and the very girl he’d been mocking, would quickly prove to be his undoing. 

With a last glance, he drew his cloak closer and slipped into the shadows of Knockturn Alley. He didn’t realise he’d been followed until it was too late and one Hermione Granger, hair a wild mass about her softly heart-shaped face, grabbed him by the shoulder and spun him around. 

“What the - let go of me you mad cow, what are you doing? If my mother sees you -” 

“If your mother sees, she’ll do precisely what, Draco Malfoy? We’re in public and your mother is nothing but terrifyingly, manipulatively polite. We’re not at all-out war yet, are we?” Hermione stared him down despite being more than a head shorter than he, her eyes full of smug satisfaction. 

He fucking _ hated _ it. He hated that look - he’d had it from her far too many times before, the scathingly spat ‘twitchy little ferret, aren’t you, Malfoy?’ ringing in his ears _ still _. It was the one that said she truly believed she was so, so much better than he. 

“What, pray tell, does a mud… oh, excuse me, _ muggle-born _ -"he smirked as her eyes narrowed to slits, “- such as yourself want in Knockturn Alley?” He leaned towards her, words a quiet mimic of his Godfather, keeping her attention on his face whilst his hand slid towards his pocketed wand.

She didn’t blink - instead, she stepped closer to him. “Now, that’s a very interesting question. Here’s my problem: Harry and Ron believe - silly, I know, but I’m rather one of their best friends and I do tend to listen to their flights of fancy - that you’re a Death Eater. Now, Malfoy, that certainly couldn’t be true, could it?” She said, a syrupy sweet tone. 

He froze, then slowly opened his mouth to speak, hiding behind every mental shield he knew how to erect. “Obviously it’s not true, Granger. I’m not even of age.” 

He prayed she’d heard the rumour that the Dark Lord only marked adults. Prayed to every god, every figure of power, to magic itself, that she was clueless to the truth.

“Exactly. It would be exceedingly foolish of Voldemort to mark a _ child _, wouldn’t it?” 

Draco’s mouth was becoming drier and drier, his mind struggling to keep up with what she was saying and what she was actually inferring. Did she think he _ was _? Did she know somehow? Or was it simply conjecture, trying to get an answer out of him? His stream of consciousness ended before he could answer, because he was struck dumb by sheer, unending agony and he simply could not breathe. 

Granger was clutching his arm tightly, right over the mark. Twisting and squeezing, to really drive the message home. 

He was hot, then cold, dizzy, woozy; his vision blurred and sparkled, dotted with grey and black and white. A high pitched ringing filled his ears, his knees could no longer support him and he crumpled, barely managing to turn his head to the side before vomiting the meagre breakfast he had eaten that morning onto the uneven cobbles. 

“Oi! Malfoy, that’s _ disgusting_!” A disembodied voice crowed from above him, followed by a mild gag. 

“Eugh, what’s _ wrong _with you?” Another, equally disembodied, equally irritated voice spat. 

“Enough!” Granger snapped, and he stared up at her through hazy vision that was drowned by stinging, involuntary tears. 

“What are you going to do, Granger? Report me?” 

“Is that what you want, Malfoy? An easy out?” 

_ Yes_. That was _ exactly _what he wanted. Instead, he sneered, clutching his arm as he spat at her feet. “As if I’m going to give you the satisfaction!” 

Something in her expression changed. A softening, perhaps. 

“Malfoy,” Granger kneeled next to him, a hand cautiously hovering just between his shoulder blades as if she were scared to touch him. “You do, don’t you? You want out. He’s asked you to do something, hasn’t he? Some sort of revenge?” 

_ Merlin, she was terrifyingly perceptive_. Draco didn’t answer - he couldn’t, as another bout of nausea swelled. He breathed in through his nose and out through his mouth as the aftershocks of the contact shot up his arm, into his shoulder, and up to his temple. He had a choice: he could either go with the sensible answer and _ run_, do exactly what he had been told to do, or… 

Or. 

He had been a coward all his life. He knew it, and it was an accusation that had been levelled at him since he was only three, too scared to get on his first toy broom in case he fell. He was the king of taking the easy path to whatever he desired. He’d searched for power and clung to it like a child’s blanket, wrapping himself in the safety and security it had, until now, offered him. 

What had it got him, in the end? Fucked, that was what. His father imprisoned, the Dark Lord in his house, his mother terrified of the shadows, his own utter humiliation. 

He’d been truly, royally fucked.

“Yes,” he croaked. 

“‘Mione, he’s having you on. Look at him, he’s a bloody _ Death Eater _ ! I _ told _ you!” There was a swish, a flutter of fabric, and Potter’s face, flushed red with anger, loomed above him - vengeance personified. Potter’s wand was pressed into the hollow of Draco’s throat before he could blink, but he didn’t flinch from it. Instead, he tilted his head upward and stared the boy down. 

“Do it. Whatever you’re thinking of doing, do it. It can’t be any worse than the hell I’m living now.” 

“Er, Harry - mate, put your wand down. I hate to say it, but I think the Ferret is telling the truth. Look at him, mate.” 

Draco wasn’t sure what they saw, but there was clearly _ something_, because the piercing tip of the wand, which he’d just been on the receiving end of, moved away from his skin after only a moment.

“Malfoy - _ Draco_,” Granger said lowly by his ear, her warm breath ghosting over his skin. “What have you been told to do?” 

He paused. It was a brief moment, and his eyes darted between Potter and Weasley as they stared down at him, faces curiously blank. He took a deep breath. _ Treason_. He was about to commit treason against the Dark Lord, his own family. 

But it might have been the only way to save them, and for once in his pathetic life, he needed to be _ brave_. Find some sort of strength he had never utilised before. 

He was terrified. 

He opened his mouth, and the words were tumbling out before he could stop them. “I’ve been told to kill Dumbledore, or he’ll kill me and my whole family. My _ mother_. She’s not even a… she never _ has _been!” He whispered fiercely, face twisting into a grimace at his own pathetic mewling.

Silence reigned, ringing hollow in the seemingly perpetual emptiness of the Alley. 

“Right, then,” Weasley said with alarming cheer, forcing him to look up into the incredulous blue eyes. “You can’t bloody well do it, can you? I mean, it’s _ Dumbledore _! What’s the Dark Twat thinking, sending a kid still in school to try and kill the most powerful wizard alive? It’s bloody stupid, that’s what. What’s he even hoping you’ll do?” 

“Die, I reckon,” Potter said quietly, and Draco blinked. That was alarmingly astute, coming from the boy-wonder. “I reckon he thinks your dad will be fully under his control if you die for the cause, right?” 

“Something like that, I imagine,” Draco muttered. 

“No - it’s to _ punish _ him,” Hermione corrected from by his side - he could _ hear _ the furrowed brow in her tone. 

“I’d appreciate it if you would stop speculating on the whys and wherefores of my death, if it’s all the same to you.” 

“Er, right,” Weasley stated awkwardly, reaching up to rub the back of his neck. “Er, yeah, fair enough.” 

“So, if I might ask - what do you plan to do?” _ With me_, the traitorous voice in his mind added.

“Well, that’s the question, isn’t it?” Hermione stood and held out her hand to him, palm up. 

He stared at it. At the slim fingertips and rounded nails, the quill-callouses, the lines of her palm, the tiny marks of silvery scars from potions knives and wand-fire. The blue-green veins in her wrist, thrumming with life. 

With the blood he had hated all of his life. 

He reached out his own hand and - after a momentary hesitation which hadn’t gone unnoticed, he was certain - took hers. It was warm, soft, and surprisingly strong as she pulled him to his feet.

“We’ll have to do something about it all then, won’t we? How long do you have to… complete this task?” 

Her hand was still holding his. He didn’t yet feel cursed by her existence. “The end of the year - but the sooner, the better.” 

Granger’s eyes crinkled slightly at the edges, her nose wrinkling. “Let me think about it. Ron and I will see you in the Prefect’s meeting on the train. Let’s carry on as our usual selves, shall we?” 

“That’ll mean calling you a _ mudblood_, you know.” Draco narrowed his eyes as he watched her face - testing, poking the particular hive of vampyr mosps to see just what would happen. 

Hermione rolled her eyes as he said it. “Yes, well, I’ve heard it for so long it’s sort of lost any sting.” She shrugged, mocking laughter in her voice, and then glanced at her watch, dropping his hand with a gasp. “Oh, no! Ron, we were supposed to meet your mother fifteen minutes ago! We’re going to be in so much trouble - come _ on_, Harry!” She called over her shoulder as she dragged Weasley with her towards the junction where Knockturn met Diagon.

Potter was scrutinising him, head to toe. “I’m watching you,” he murmured in Draco’s ear as he passed, bumping his shoulder _ hard _ against his as he followed his two friends who were running towards the brightness of Diagon Alley. “Oh, _ sorry_. Didn’t mean to do that.” 

“Wouldn’t expect anything less, Potter,” Draco replied as smoothly as he could manage as he regained his balance. Potter snorted and disappeared around the corner, away from the murky shadows and acidic stink of his own vomit. 

He glanced back down at his hand. Nothing had changed - no stain, no feeling of disgust. The only thing that lingered was the slight feeling of warmth, and the callouses against his own skin. It could have been Pansy’s hand, his mother’s hand. Had he not seen Granger, he would never have known the difference.

Shaking his head, Draco brushed down his robes and headed with renewed purpose towards Borgin and Burke’s. He had a mission, after all, and he had to be seen to be carrying it out. 


	3. The Truce

**6th September, 1996 **

Somehow, in between Prefect meetings, the feast, and the return to his Common Room, Draco had acquired a galleon that he was certain he otherwise had not been carrying on his person. It came with no other identifying information, save for a strange, sticky piece of white parchment attached to it - saying only _ ‘keep me in your pocket _’ in elegant cursive script. To the average passer-by it appeared entirely faultless, but upon further inspection it was clear there was something rather different about it. 

It was only later that week, after classes had started, that he realised just what it was. At first, it seemed to be a gentle warming. The longer he ignored it, the hotter and hotter it became until he hauled it out of his trouser pocket and examined it with a creased brow, followed by an unintentional, vaguely impressed whistle as he spotted the change in the serial number to a short series of words

_ 7th floor, 8pm. HP will meet you _

The writing then cleared, but the coin began to heat once more a moment later with a new message appearing, letter by letter.

_ Will meet you there after rounds - HG _

Of _ course _ Granger had worked out how to cast what he believed to be a seventh year Protean charm at least a year earlier than planned. Her levels of sheer bookish swottiness apparently knew no bounds, and the familiar bubble of irritation climbed up in his chest. Could the girl not be _ normal _ for once in her life? Was it really necessary for her to prove to all and sundry that she was just so sodding special? 

Still, once he’d eaten and returned to the Slytherin Common room in an appropriately affected broody huff, he dutifully went to the seventh floor heavily ensconced in a disillusionment charm. After peering around a few corners, he spotted Potter lingering near an old tapestry of some trolls attempting to pirouette in ridiculous little tutus. He seemed to be stuck in a cycle of examining his nails, a mark on the back of his hand, and rubbing at his forehead in alternate, anxious movements. Draco, once he was sure the coast was clear, removed the charm that kept him hidden from view and cleared his throat. Potter glanced up, looking around suspiciously before his eyes landed on Draco, and with a silent gesture, he indicated for him to come and stand opposite an empty expanse of wall. 

“It’s called the Room of Requirement,” Harry stood before the wall, awkward and stilted as he spoke without meeting Draco’s eyes. “It’s, er, where we held meetings… last year.” 

“I knew there was something fishy about this corridor, Potter,” Draco grumbled, eyes darting up and down the corridor, lest he be seen by his housemates or sympathisers to the Dark Lord’s cause. He was safe - at least for now, and it was a palpable relief that for the moment he was flying under cloud-cover.

“Yeah, well, we didn’t have a right lot of choice, did we?” Potter spoke bitterly, “‘Cause of Umbridge and everything.” 

“Ah. Yes.” Draco cleared his throat, stomach in knots. His fault. _ His fault _ \- because he hadn’t even liked the vile old bitch and only did what she asked because his father had threatened him to do so before he got on the train. He attempted to force the guilt aside, but his voice still wavered a little. “So,” he coughed, “How does this beastly little room of yours work?” 

“You kind of just walk backwards and forwards in front of the wall opposite the tapestry, thinking about what you need. Here, let me just… I’m thinking about needing a place to get away from Ron and Hermione for a bit.” Potter offered a wry grin, and Draco snorted before he could stop himself. He was being dangerously close to cordial with Potter, and he didn’t quite know how he felt about it. 

Eleven-year-old Draco Malfoy would have been ecstatic. 

“There, see?” 

Draco blinked, reining in his momentary jaunt into childhood, and saw before him a door - one that certainly hadn’t been there before. But Potter’s face had paled, mouth turned down. “I bloody _ hate _ this room,” he mumbled, walking up to punch the wood with a solid thud. 

“How can you hate a room, Potter? It’s an inanimate object.” 

“You wouldn’t understand, Malfoy,” Potter sighed, a hand coming up to rub his forehead again - lingering over his scar. 

Draco wondered idly if the scar that marked him for life truly pained him, or if it was just a habit formed over time. He also wondered just what it was that bothered Potter so much about this room, and this particular door. Draco pursed his lips and unthinkingly blurted the first words that came to his mind: “Oh, honestly! It’s just a door.” 

He knew it was foolish the moment he said it; Potter was clearly on edge already, and forced cordiality around a person one had utterly loathed for five years was generally something that put one on the back foot. It was the only reasoning Draco could find which justified his sheer lack of forethought when the dark-haired boy turned on him, emerald eyes ablaze, and for just a moment, Draco would have entirely understood if that fre was what scared the Dark Lord so much about him. 

“You don’t get it, do you? You’re such a selfish prick that you just don’t _ get what it’s like _. For everyone who has ever loved you or cared about you to wind up dead because of you.” 

How on earth did that have anything to do with the door before him? Potter had been a mere infant when his parents had been dispatched by the Dark Lord, so he surely couldn’t remember anything about the room or the place in which they had died for him. Draco was absolutely certain that, once again, the boy before him was using his parents’ deaths as an easy way to score pity and compliance - after all, there was many a Slytherin who could play the dead parent card, his best friends, Theo and Blaise, included. “Oh, boo-hoo, Potter. Your mother and father are dead - trust me, the _ entire _ wizarding world is well-fucking-aware.”

“And the entire wizarding world would be better off if _ yours _ were, wouldn’t it? At least good old Lucius is safe behind bars, and at the mercy of the Dementors,” Potter snarled. Surely, he was speaking only out of pure spite, but Draco felt the icy sting of his words just the same.

“If it wasn’t for you and your merry band of idiots, he wouldn’t be imprisoned at all!” 

“He’s a _ Death Eater _ ! It’s _ exactly _ where he deserves to be; and the apple clearly doesn’t fall far from the tree, does it?” 

Their voices were climbing louder and higher, more and more raw - a risk he couldn’t take when they were out in the open and any commotion could draw people running. Draco drew his wand and pressed it to the centre of Potter’s chest, faster than the boy could blink. “Say it again, Potter, and I’ll make you wish you hadn’t." He jabbed the wand into the thinner flesh over the boy’s sternum a little more firmly in emphasis.

With a wand at point-blank range and his own still tucked away, it appeared Potter still maintained some element of common sense. “It was people like you that caused their deaths. It was Death Eaters _ like you _ that meant I had to live with people who…” Potter drew in a ragged breath, pausing in his rambling. “You had _ everything _, Malfoy, and you still decided it wasn’t enough. At least you grew up loved by your parents, even if they’re totally awful. Just… just… Stuff you, you insufferable arsehole. We should never have bothered; you clearly haven’t changed a bit.” 

Potter shoved Draco’s arm aside with a vicious slap, and stormed off down the corridor. Draco blinked again and again, wand still outstretched, until he let his arm fall to his side limply. 

What the ever-loving fuck had just happened?

“He’s been like that all summer; he’s just... angry, _ all _ the time. Can’t blame him, really, when you think about it.” 

Draco spun on his heel and spied the eternally lanky ginger leaning against a wall, a slanted smile on his lips. “How long have you been there, Weasley?” 

“I dunno; a bit, I guess. I had a feeling, y’know?” 

“What, you expected that Potter and I would end up spitting insults to each other in a corridor, and decided that you were up for a bit of voyeuristic stalking? Wonders shall never cease.” Draco threw his hands in the air, utterly exasperated. 

“Oh, piss off. I mean, bloody _ obviously _ you’d end up fighting - like an aguamenti and fiendfyre, you two. But I mean… Harry started it, didn’t he? And he’s been doing it all summer - sulking, or looking for a fight… or both at the same time, sometimes. Hermione’s copped for it loads already,” Weasley shrugged, pushing himself off the wall to come and stand beside him. He nodded to the entrance to the bedroom. “D’you know whose room that is?”

Draco frowned and examined the door: heavy, old and dark-stained, yet ornately carved wood. He was certain he recognised it… from a long-ago dream of a memory, of dour old women and pinching fingers and insincere platitudes. 

“It’s from the old Black townhouse, isn’t it? Mother… she always implied it had been, well, lost.” 

Weasley nodded. “Yeah. It’s… it was Sirius’ room. It was in his name for ages after his cow of a mother kicked it, and then he passed it to Harry as his godkid, I guess.”

Ah. Yes. Bugger, he’d forgotten entirely about Black’s death - what with his own father being captured and imprisoned without a trial of his own in the interim, and his mother consistently avoiding anything to do with her Black roots but for her sister, his _ dear _ Auntie Bella. He wondered if any part of his mother felt sad at her cousin's passing, even if he had been a disgraceful blood-traitor of the worst kind.

He ignored the hypocrisy of the thought steadfastly.

“I heard about that from… well, you can imagine who.” Draco did his very best not to fidget, scratch at his Mark, or to meet the eyes of the boy who he was certain would be shooting daggers at him. A sidelong glance, however, found Weasley staring at the door with a vicious snarl on his lips. 

“Bitch.” 

“Quite.” 

They stood together in silence for a moment, and then Weasley coughed non-too-subtly. “You gonna go in, or what?” 

Draco examined the door again. His father had always touted Sirius Black as a hero of the Light, and in Draco's third year, he had openly mocked the news that Black was supposedly an agent of the Dark Lord. His father, after all, would have known. During the first war, he had been a prominent Death Eater - from funding the political campaigns to taking part in more than a little simple Muggle-baiting. The man’s hands were red with the blood of blood-traitors, Muggles and mudbloods - _ Muggle-borns _ \- alike.

Muggle-born.   
_ Muggle-born. _

Washing the slurs from his mouth was harder than he’d ever imagined. The casual comment, the throwaway word, the repetition of it from almost every facet of his life had them ingrained in his subconscious so thoroughly that he even _ thought _in them. The new realisation that they might not all ring entirely true was grating on him whenever he allowed himself a moment to think. 

“He was a Black. My mother’s side, you know? Family.” 

Weasley nodded - he knew the game, after all. He had Blacks and the odd Malfoy in his own family tree, still a pureblood despite his blood-traitor upbringing. “He was a good bloke. A bit of a loose Bludger at times, but that’s Azkaban for you I ‘spose.” 

Draco nodded absently - deciding not to act any further on that comment, as it would require considering when his father might be released, and how he would be left scarred from it - and approached the door. 

He needed somewhere to think. Somewhere to feel everything he was feeling - the guilt, betrayal, anger, pride; a place where he would be hidden from view. The door didn’t change. Clearly, Potter had been thinking something similar when the castle conjured the room for him, though he hadn’t voiced it.

He reached out a hand and pushed down the heavy brass handle until it clicked, giving a small push that had it swinging inwards with a slow creak. 

It was a small room, really, for what should have been a far grander home. The walls were littered with still images: women in suggestive poses and _ very _ little clothing on some sort of… wheeled transport. A king-size bed, draped in Gryffindor burgundy and gold, overwhelmed the room almost entirely, with a battered Hogwarts trunk at the end. Weasley hovered in the doorway, peering in with a grin and a look of fond recognition.

“Sirius put the pictures up with a permanent sticking charm. They’re Muggle models, he said - kind of like the ones in PlayWizard. Said they’d piss his old mum off - well, you’d know how much,” Weasley snorted, shaking his head, ginger hair flopping into his eyes. “There’s even the scorch marks on the desk, blimey.” Weasley paused for a moment, appearing at once sad and amused. “Harry idolised him a bit, y’know. Funny bloke, really, but a bit… well, Hermione called him irresponsible a lot, but in the end he was one of the good ones. He went down exactly as he wanted to, I reckon. Wands blazing, right in the action.” He sobered and sighed, pushing the escaping strands of his hair back.

“Weasley,” Draco began, and then frowned. “Potter - the papers always said he had a lavish childhood, somewhere in secret. But he seemed to imply…” 

Ron shook his head with a dark sort of laugh. “Nah. The Muggles - his mum’s sister, her whale of a husband, and their gigantic kid - they tortured him. Treated him like little better than a house-elf. He doesn’t talk about it much, but we - me, Fred, and George - rescued him one summer. There were bars on the windows, he was locked in, and there was this little flap they put food through sometimes if they decided he’d been alright.” 

“That’s barbaric,” Draco blurted, aghast despite his typically comfortable enmity with Potter. “Didn’t they know - didn’t they_ care _…?” 

Weasley shrugged, cheeks ruddy - with anger or awkwardness, he wasn’t entirely sure. “Who knows, Malfoy? They treated him like shite at the end of the day, and to them he wasn’t famous… just an inconvenience. So maybe think about that when you’re hurling whatever bollocks you two usually do at each other. He’s not like Snape reckons, even if he acts like a prat half the time these days.” 

Weasley stopped, clamming up quickly as if realising he’d overstepped some invisible mark before Draco could even contest it, and retreated from the room with his eyes downcast. “I’ll send ‘Mione up, shall I? That way you can start planning.” 

Draco swallowed, nodding. He wasn’t particularly looking forward to spending any more time than absolutely necessary with the girl, and the thought made him shudder, but it might be better than Weasley’s bumbling awkwardness. “Yes, probably best.” 

The door clicked shut, and Draco sauntered through plushly carpeted space to lie down on the bed, head sinking into the soft down pillow until he was staring up at the heavy canopy above. 

He wondered why the room hadn’t changed for him when he’d thought about what he needed at that moment. He’d always known that Sirius Black was a stain on his house, a burden to his family, a traitorous lion in a house of snakes. For the rest of the summer, Draco had tried to push aside his conversation in Knockturn Alley with the three Gryffindors, to focus on his momentous task that would surely see him dead. He hadn’t stopped to consider that everything he was doing made him rather more like this man than he was comfortable admitting, and now he'd never get the chance to properly know him.

Despite honestly believing that the wizarding world was far superior to the Muggle one, did not supporting the Dark Lord make him a blood-traitor? Did not wishing to die for the cause, a cause that had cut his family in two, make him like Black?

And what of Potter? He’d always assumed, as they’d all been told, that Potter would have been spoiled for his entire upbringing before Hogwarts, like the saint that wizarding society painted him. He’d assumed, right or wrong, that all the stupid and dangerous shite that Potter did was attention-seeking behaviour to ensure that he was kept firmly in the forefront of everyone’s mind. 

But maybe… Maybe it wasn’t entirely that. Draco was certain that some of it was, but now it was framed differently. Maybe - Salazar forbid, he thought with a gag - Potter actually thought he was doing something good. Maybe he did idiotic things because any attention was better than no attention. If he’d been ‘tortured’, as Weasley had rather hyperbolically stated, then was his praise-seeking really a way to find any sort of affection he could?

The very idea made him feel queasy; he’d known too many of his own peers who had suffered similar fates, but who had found little praise - instead, condemnation.

A tentative knock on the door startled him from the thoughts that were starting to spiral into dark depths he was not ready to face; a quiet ‘Malfoy?’ floating through from the other side, and he sat up, heart fluttering with oddly thankful relief. May as well get the whole ordeal over with, and make it three for three on encounters with the Gryffindor goon squad. “Come in, Granger.” 

She looked tired and obviously bothered by something as she shut the door behind her; her brown eyes were dull, skin ashen, and her lips a chapped, thin line. He wondered if she’d been on the receiving end of Potter’s ire. Her hair was a mess, barely constrained by the plait it was in, but her uniform remained neatly pressed and her Prefect badge obnoxiously shiny. 

If she felt anything about the room, as she gazed around it, she didn’t show it. Instead, she took purposeful steps towards him. 

“I shan’t apologise for Harry, you know. He can do it himself - he’s a big boy, after all.” Granger rolled her eyes as she sat primly on the edge of the bed next to him, hands folded in her lap, her book bag placed neatly by her side. She’d been on rounds, so she must have returned to her Common Room to get it - which meant that she had clearly thought _ far _ too much about how they were going to attempt to ‘kill’ their Headmaster; at least, to attempt it convincingly enough that he flew below the Dark Lord’s notice for long enough to get out of doing it. 

“Wonderful. How I desperately crave the apologies of the Boy Who Lived To Be A Pain In My Arse,” Draco snorted, crossing his ankles. 

“Don’t be crass, Malfoy. He’s got a lot going on - and goodness knows, it really _ is _ a lot. Prophecies and so much death…” she trailed off. “He takes it very personally, you know.” 

“Granger, I really couldn’t give a shit about Potter’s feelings.” _ Lie _, he thought, but didn’t voice it. Didn’t even show it. 

“Well, considering he’s your ‘in’ with Dumbledore, I rather suggest you stop trying to burn the very few bridges you have left.” 

Regretfully, the swotty little chit was right - as bloody always. Electing not to dig himself deeper into a hole that could see him entirely without allies and potentially at risk of exposure, Draco said nothing, instead gazing up at the canopy of burgundy and gold stripes above his head. “This colouring really is ghastly. I don’t know how you stand it.” 

“Oh, we endure it as best we can,” she said drily and Draco almost smiled as his brows rose. 

“Was that… was that a _ joke _, Granger?” He turned his eyes to her, and she rolled her own in response as she stood, smoothing down her skirt. “You’re actually capable of having a laugh?”

“It’s funny what you start to see when you’re not quite so busy hating me for my blood, isn’t it?” 

_ Ouch _. That was a little too on the nose for his liking, he thought mulishly, but stood. “I’m sure it’s a fluke, Granger. I bet you’re actually intentionally funny about twice a year. Luckily for you, general sarcasm tends to have a higher hit-rate.” 

She huffed, a hand coming up to pinch the bridge of her nose as if he were sorely testing her patience. “Malfoy, do shut up. We have work to do and then you have a patrol to complete, so if we could get on with this then it’d be greatly appreciated.” 

Draco sighed and stood, closing his eyes. _ I need the room where the old Vanishing Cabinet is hidden. _

When he opened them again, they were surrounded by mountains of old uniforms and trinkets, bookcases and shelves, wardrobes and drawers and statues - all manner of junk that appeared to be discarded from times long past. He even thought, he realised as he took in the sheer volume of _ stuff _ around the room with incredulity, that he had seen a chamber pot. 

“Oh, goodness!” Granger gasped, a hand flying to cover her mouth as she bounced onto the balls of her feet - Draco grimaced at her unnecessary exuberance. “I think this must be what the Room’s default state is. I suppose a lot of students need to hide _ something _ at some point or another - or even lose things, and the castle relocates them here for safekeeping.” 

“Probably,” Draco agreed blandly, and then spotted an old, cracked cabinet hidden in the shadows of a precariously tilted bookcase. “Look - over here, Granger. Let me explain what I had in mind.” 

At first, she had argued fiercely with him over allowing Death Eaters into Hogwarts at all. She’d attempted bribery, cajoling, and threatening to go to Dumbledore and reveal everything, but had eventually simmered down into what Draco gleefully considered a sulk as she folded her arms. 

“Fine,” she huffed. “But we need to make sure it’s on _ our _ terms, and we leave it for as long as we possibly can. After Easter at the very earliest, I shouldn’t wonder - and we won’t be able to start on it tonight, anyway. We need to find out the right sort of diagnostic charms to use to work out what’s actually wrong with it - and I hear they’re particularly tricky to fix. In the meantime, you need to plant some false attempts on Dumbledore’s life to cover your own back.” 

“I have an idea for the first one - it’s on the Hogsmeade weekend. I’ve a cursed necklace I want to try and get to him, but it should be stopped by the teachers _ well _ before it ever makes it to his office unnoticed,” he admitted, thinking of the garish opal jewellery hidden in his trunk under several wards, hexes and charms. 

Hermione grimaced. “I don’t like it - I didn’t mean with effectively _ live ammunition _. There are too many risk factors involved, too many people you could potentially hurt if it ends up in the wrong hands, and too many ways you could be caught.” 

“I won’t get caught,” he replied easily, settling back with his legs outstretched on the floor. “Severus - sorry, Snape, has reassured me that he can cover my tracks.” 

Granger’s face smoothed out into a carefully blank mask at the mention of his Godfather, and she uttered a non-committal “Hmm” in response as she packed her school bag with terrifying neatness.

_ Hmm? _ Well, that was something he needed to investigate. Clearly there was something to do with his Godfather that Granger knew - or maybe suspected. There had always been rumours about Severus - his father had listened to his Aunt and various other parties bemoan the man on more than one occasion in this last year alone. However, he had always been fully convinced of Severus’ loyalty. 

“Shall we meet again at this time next week? It seems to suit our timetables well enough,” Granger asked, checking around for any missed books or parchment. 

“Whatever, Granger,” he shrugged, collecting his own things lazily. “I’m going to try and speak to Severus - see if I can work out what he knows, and what he doesn’t.” 

“You do that, Malfoy. Who knows? Maybe he can save…” She trailed off, and her cheeks flushed pink. Merlin, she really had _ no _ subtlety. 

“Well, if that’s all? I need to get out on patrol.” He indicated his wristwatch, and Granger’s eyes widened as she scrambled to her feet inelegantly. 

“Oh, bugger, you do. I’ll see you on Sunday for the Prefect meeting.” 

“Regrettably, you will indeed see me then,” Draco sighed, rolling his eyes up to the ceiling. 

Granger glared at him, but didn’t say anything else as she fled from the room, likely to go and finish the tiny bit of homework they’d been given. She was nothing if almost entirely predictable. 

Left to his own devices, Draco meandered around the room one last time - picking up a particularly interesting old copy of Hogwarts: A History - and headed out into the darkening corridors of the castle. It was almost ten - curfew for all but seventh-years who could use the library until eleven, which meant that he had to ensure that there weren’t any… accidental-on-purpose stragglers who were taking their time in returning to their Common Rooms for the night. 

He patrolled alone in the shadows of the dungeons, between Hufflepuff’s barrells and Slytherin’s blank wall, down the Potions corridor and around the kitchen. It was solitary, but after the hours he’d spent in the company of too many voracious individuals, he found the peace and quiet soothing. In this first week few students dared to be out of bed - or at least, if they were out, they were the ones smart enough not to get caught and therefore were clever enough to defend themselves if trouble came calling. It was a shame that he knew it wouldn’t last, and the idiots wanting to pop off for a sneaky snog, or even a shag, would be out in droves by the end of the month.

“Oi, Malfoy. Hermione told me what you’re planning to do.” A voice interrupted his musings, and he spun on his heel to see a figure slowly stepping out of the shadows - hardly lit at all by the gloom. Yet he knew the silhouette anywhere - the messy hair, the narrow frame, the glasses glinting in the dim torchlight. 

Draco took a step back as he fully emerged - Potter looked angry, _ furious _ even. 

“I don’t like the risks you’re taking to get to Dumbledore. You’re going to hurt someone - I know it. And anyway, there’s obviously something wrong with him - I mean, you must have seen his hand.” 

Draco _ hadn’t _, in fact, missed the withered hand when he’d seen it at the feast - though he’d suspected it long before he boarded the train to Hogwarts. “It’s some sort of curse. I overheard Severus - Professor Snape, he’s my Godfather, you see - talking to my mother over summer about how he’s treated it. He was teaching me a bit of extra… defence.” 

Potter didn’t say anything, clearly mulling over his words with a furrowed brow. “I wonder if… but I mean, it’d be stupid, wouldn’t it? Could he be… I mean, he _ must _ know you’re after him. Snape… we see him over summer too, sometimes.” Potter glanced at him shrewdly, and Draco knew he was being tested. Severus was seeing Potter over summer, somehow? But that would only mean that his Auntie Bella was right not to trust him. Slow realisation dawned on him, and he cursed his own stupidity. 

“That’s… very interesting, Potter,” Draco said slowly as understanding settled fully on him. Snape wasn’t on the Dark Lord’s side at all since his return… if he ever even had been. He wasn’t a double-agent for the Dark Lord, as he led everyone to believe - it was for Dumbledore. 

And if he was, then Dumbledore not only knew what he had to do, but was allowing Draco to do it unhindered. 

“Like I said, I don’t like it. But if it means that we’ve another pair of eyes in Voldemort’s - oh, give in - camp, then I’ll…” Harry frowned, and with an exaggerated move which appeared to physically pain him, he walked closer and thrust out his hand. 

“A truce?” Draco laughed, incredulous, as he looked between Potter’s hand and the hard expression on his face.

“This doesn’t mean I trust you, Malfoy. But Hermione does, so I’ll just have to wait for you to cock up, won’t I?” 

Draco shook his head. “You’re barking, Potter. But fine, a truce.” 

As their hands touched, squeezing a little too tightly, eyes a little too hard, Draco recalled a moment when he’d offered _ his _ hand to Potter and had been steadfastly turned down.   
  
He considered idly, as Potter disappeared down the corridor into the gloom with a fairly impressive degree of stealth, if his eleven-year-old self would have imagined _ this _. 

  



	4. The Friendship

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Particular thanks to HollyBrianne here who helped me hash this out and caught my tired-brain repetitions!

**12th October, 1996**

“_Draco Malfoy _!” 

The shriek sent him flying away from the cabinet, heart thrumming in his chest as he brandished his own wand. He ducked from the bright jet of a stinging hex as his eyes fixed on the form that had come barging through the door like a centaur on the warpath. She still wore a light scarf and some Muggle jeans, covered almost to the knees by a long knitted jumper. 

“Granger, what the hell is your problem?” He gaped as she stormed through the room, tracking mud which was clearly from Hogsmeade - for whatever reason, she’d felt the need to seek him out without even stopping to clean herself up. Her face was pale and her hands were shaking, though her wand was outstretched and directed at him with enough accuracy for her to get away with whatever she intended to do without difficulty. 

“You said you were getting the necklace to Dumbledore _ \- not _ that you were going to use a student and an Imperius you disgusting, foul - _ avis! Oppugno! _” 

Draco yelled as a flock of violently bright yellow canaries shot forward from her wand, diving towards him with beady little black eyes. “What the hell are you doing, you barmy mud… ow! Bloody… _ Ow! _ Granger, call off your bloody birds!” He tried to hit them with repeated stunners, but they moved too quickly at the whim of their mistress, responding to the slip of the slur that had half-tumbled out of his mouth before he had even thought. 

“_Don’t _ call me that name, it doesn’t even _ mean _ anything!” She cried, conjuring another flock which she sent flying towards his face. 

“I didn’t mean it - okay, Granger, fucking give up!” 

“Oh, it just _ slipped out_, did it?” she scoffed, rolling her eyes before setting herself back on him again. “You _ said _ that no-one would get hurt. You _ said _ the teachers would find it too quickly!” 

“What - ow, ow! Oh Merlin, is that bird shit?” He batted at the tiny yellow birds that were hammering at him in a terrifyingly organised attack formation, ducking and smacking them whenever they got close enough, and grimacing when he felt wetness slide down his forehead. “What the - piss _ off _ you feathery bastard - hell are you talking about?” 

“Katie -” Another flock of birds, more scratches and pecks and shit in his hair, “ - Bell, you absolute… absolute _ arse _! She’s in St. Mungo’s - probably until Christmas at least, her friends are saying!” 

Draco paled and froze - his hand still in mid-air. Shit - she must have done something which ended up with her getting a glancing blow off the necklace; she’d have been dead if it was more than a hair’s-breadth of a touch. He’d wrapped the package incredibly tightly - for the paper to have ripped there must have been some sort of fight. 

He’d not meant for anyone to get hurt - in fact, the whole point of this sodding circus with Granger, Potter and Weasley was for people not to get caught in the crossfire _ at all_.

The fight was sapped from him almost instantly. He’d cast the curses on Rosmerta and Bell and made a run for it back to the castle so as to avoid detection and blame. Aunt Bella had been teaching him in explicit detail all about the Unforgivables and how precisely to cast them, so he had thought his grounding was thorough enough to keep all parties involved safe. He’d specifically said that no-one was to touch the item inside of the paper - but clearly that hadn’t accounted for accidents. 

He should have stayed there. He should have watched to make sure everything went according to plan until a teacher could intercept. Severus had been right - he wasn’t cut out for the task. He’d said as much after he’d pulled Draco aside at the end of one of their Defence lessons and snarled his way through several explicit warnings. His mother was right to be scared for his life, he was already a failure before he’d even begun. 

Draco let the birds attack him, curling in on himself and resting his head on his knees. 

“I’m sorry,” he croaked, the words catching in his throat, but he didn’t ask her to stop. He deserved this punishment - of that there was no doubt. Instead she sighed, and uttered a quiet ‘_finite_’. 

“Oh Malfoy… Draco,” she said sadly, and he peered up to see her shaking her head as she backed away to sit on a stool that wobbled precariously underneath her slight frame. “I know. You did something awful and terrible, and I hope you regret it and this isn’t just an act. But I won’t participate in your own self-harm.” 

Her shoulders sagged forward as if the weight of the world were upon them, and Draco wondered if she regretted her involvement already. The anger that had puffed her up like a never-burst balloon had escaped her, leaving her to appear shaken and dishevelled. 

“I’m sorry,” he repeated again, not knowing what else to say, and she sighed before coming to crouch before him, muttering a quiet scouring charm that removed the bird shit and feathers that covered him. 

“It isn’t me that you should be apologising to, Draco,” Granger said, and she reached out - brushing the stray hairs from his face to tuck them behind his ear. It was a simple gesture, and if he closed his eyes he could imagine that it was his mother. Pretended it wasn’t the girl he hated - had been taught to hate - for all of his life, and remember what it felt like to be touched without malice.

“Next time, tell me _ everything_,” she said, the same sadness in her voice returning briefly before it hardened to steel. “And if you call me a _ mudblood _ again, I will go straight to Dumbledore and tell him everything before letting Ron and Harry have at you.”

Then the touch was gone and he was curiously bereft and cold, the door slamming hard mere seconds later. When Draco drew his head from his knees, the Room of Requirement was empty and quiet, save for his own ragged breathing and the thunder of his pulse in his ears. 

* * *

**1st November, 1996 **

It had taken her a week to return to the Room after the incident with the birds. Draco hadn’t expected it to feel quite as lonely as it did without her company, nor had he expected the relief that had coursed through him when she opened the door and told him to show her what he’d managed to figure out. 

They’d spent more evenings together than apart - more often than not in a strange, companionable silence. Not awkward… no, they simply had nothing to say, yet shared the same space in their quietude. Draco found it peaceful in a way he couldn’t truly explain, and a way he would never have found in the backstabbing pit of his Common Room. 

“It’s always strange when Halloween is quiet,” Granger said as she flipped through a book, occasionally casting spells on the cabinet. 

“I know,” Draco muttered as he watched the diagnostic flicker from red to amber, and then back to red again. “Damnit, that was the nearest we’ve been.” 

Granger hummed for a moment, tracing her finger across the page, and stuck her wand between her teeth as she made a note in the margin with her quill. “Uns nuh.. Oh, sorry, my manners. It’s so frustrating, but I’m also sort of glad that we’ve not hit on the right thing yet. It buys you more time.” 

Draco nodded absently. “I wonder why nothing happened? Isn’t it, you know, the Curse of Potter?” 

Hermione’s eyes danced as she laughed - no longer the plain brown for a moment, but a lighter honey. “No, Malfoy - Draco. That’s summer. Something _ always _ happens before we break up for summer without fail. As it is, the worst we’ve got is some dramatics from Ronald about Quidditch and honestly I just don’t have the energy for it.” 

Draco considered her words. Hermione was right - there was always something in the summer term that seemed to include Potter in some catastrophic way. The thing with Quirrell, the giant bloody snake, Lupin and Black (he’d heard the whole sordid tale from Severus in explicit detail that summer), the return of the Dark Lord, and then the fight at the Ministry the previous summer. Harry Potter really did seem to draw in all of the bad luck that the universe and magic had to offer him. 

And now Draco's father was in prison thanks to Potter’s bad luck. It was his birthday, and he was alone with the Dementors as his only company. 

“Granger… why do you think people follow the Dark Lord?” 

Hermione paused in her casting, a thoughtful look on her face. “Prejudice, sometimes - I have no doubt that some people truly believed what he was selling them. I think others were probably coerced, like you. But I think it’s more to do with power and what lengths men will go to in order to obtain it. Voldemort wanted power, and he saw the purebloods as the easiest to manipulate to that effect - and the promise of power in return is incredibly motivating.” 

“What do you mean?” 

“Well…” Hermione began, and then placed her wand down slowly as she chewed on her lip for a moment. “It’s like in Germany. At the same time as Grindelwald was taking power in the wizarding world, a man named Adolf Hitler was rising to power in Muggle Germany. Except where Grindelwald was attacking Muggles, Hitler was going after Jewish people. They were both blamed for all of society’s ills, gave the ‘perfect’ race a target to focus on, and a group to exert power and control over.” 

“But… why did he go after Jewish people?” Draco asked, utterly confused. 

Hermione shrugged. “Lots of reported reasons, but ultimately they were a scapegoat. Germany had been in a recession for years, the people didn’t have enough money, and they wanted someone to blame and a way to feel in control and powerful again. Hitler used those feelings to fuel his rise to power, and he started a war that spanned most of the Muggle world. If you’re interested, I can probably find you a good book.” 

“But that still doesn’t make sense!” He exclaimed, frustrated, and Hermione gave him a sad smile.

“Neither does hating Muggles. They’re just _ different, _just as the Jews were in Nazi Germany. No better or worse… just different,” Hermione shrugged, picking her wand and book back up. “These are the things they should be teaching in Muggle Studies, you know. Not about how to use a toaster.” 

Draco shut his mouth quickly. He knew the point she was trying to make - it wasn’t a subtle comparison, after all. 

“It’s just… everything I ever believed in…” 

“_Taught _ to believe in,” she corrected gently, and Draco bowed his head. 

“Is it? Is it what I was taught?” 

“Draco, close your eyes for a moment. _ Please,_” she prompted, and he did so after a brief hesitation. “Right. There. Tell me, what do you feel?” 

“I…” 

She’d placed her hand in his again. Only this time the touch wasn’t one of necessity - it was choice. He felt the same time-worn callouses, the softer palms. He traced his fingers up towards her wrist, where her pulse beat firm and true - a little quickly, perhaps, but even. Her hand turned over and he brought his other over the top, encasing it in his palms fully. 

So small - but this hand had broken his nose once before. It held her wand. It wrote feet of essays. And he couldn’t voice a word of it to her.

“D’you know what I think?” She asked quietly, seeming to sense his unease, and Draco shook his head. “I feel… broom callouses. You don’t wear gloves often enough,” she chided gently. “I can feel where your wand rests, and where you hold your quill. I can feel where you’ve bitten your nails around the edges until you make them bleed. I can feel dryness because you don’t use a moisturiser even though you wash your hands so often during potions - but that’s because you know a cleaning charm isn’t thorough enough for some substances and you don’t want to ruin your brewing. I can feel your pulse - is it always this quick? But I don’t feel anything that differentiates you from Harry or Ron, or… Viktor, or my father. Should I?” 

Draco pulled his hands away, and opened his eyes. “Your hands… they could be my mother’s. They could be Daphne’s or Pansy’s.”

Hermione dipped her head, hair falling into her face. From this distance he could see that it wasn’t frizzy - not in the way that dry hair frizzed. It was so intensely curly that they clung and twisted together - and he thought it might actually be soft, if he touched it. 

“It’s my father’s birthday,” he blurted, and Granger’s head rose, tilting at an angle. 

“That must be hard, Draco. How are you? How’s your mother?” 

Draco felt his heart stop. He’d not even thought - he’d been so wrapped up in his own misery and self-hatred he hadn’t even thought about how his mother must be feeling. 

“I’m… I’m _ fine_,” He said, suddenly feeling angry. “Why are you being so bloody understanding, Granger?” He spat. “The man hates your very existence. Doesn’t believe you have a _right_ to exist.” 

“I know. But that isn’t all of who he is to you, and you can still love someone even though they’ve done terrible, evil things. He’s your _dad;_ you can still love the good parts of him.” 

“What if… what if I don’t_ want _to?” 

“I never said you had to - just that you _ could_.” Granger leaned back against the sofa they’d found and drawn towards the cabinet, her hands clasped in her lap. 

“He’s taught me _ everything_, Granger. Everything stemmed from this constant belief that purity will always conquer - it’s our sodding house motto! Even the good times are tainted by this constant little voice in my ear telling me that I’m _ better _ than everyone else.” 

Hermione, to his bemusement and frustration, laughed. “That also comes from being as rich as sin, you know. I mean, I know I can be a terrible snob at times and my parents only bring in about…” she frowned, attempting some calculation in her head. “Oh, probably something like sixty-five thousand galleons a year, give or take a few thousand.”

Draco’s eyes widened and his brows rose. That sum was more than what some of his pureblood friends’ parents earned from holdings or investments each year - by quite a margin, in fact. “Granger, what the hell do your parents _ do_? That’s not pocket-change, you know. ” 

“Maybe not to you, but in Muggle London? It’s barely upper-middle class,” she shrugged. “As for what they do - they fix teeth,” She said with an impish grin, flashing the very set he’d so often mocked. “Just think - Muggles don’t have magic to heal, so they use their own ways. If you had a hole in your tooth that needed fixing… well. My dad would just have to drill it, clean it out, and then fill it up with a special paste that goes hard over time and with certain special lights.” 

Draco felt positively green at the thought; a feeling which must have shown on his face quite violently because it caused Hermione - Granger - to laugh outright. “That doesn’t help the case you were making about Muggles being better,” Draco said weakly, and Hermione laughed all the harder. 

“I never said better - I said _ different_. Anyway, don’t be a baby - they numb the area first so you don’t feel a thing. With a _ huge _ needle.” Granger gestured with her hands to indicate an impossibly-sized implement, and Draco, for a moment, thought he might be sick. 

“You’re all absolutely bloody mental,” he stated emphatically. “Mental bloody Muggles.” 

“Whatever you say, Draco,” Granger sang lightly in an unmistakable teasing tone, and she picked up her book again without another word. 

“Foot-long needle, my arse,” he continued to chunter, and he firmly ignored the little giggle that escaped Her… _ Granger’s _ lips every time she overheard his many, many complaints. 

The tension had been broken - but when Draco left to return to his Common Room for his weekly evening patrol, the dark thoughts and questions remained in his brain entirely unanswered. 

Three days later, after another session working on the bane of his existence with the girl he seemed to find less and less irritating, he found a simple black book with a strange sort of cross on it. Cracking open the spine, he barely had time to read the title - _The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich - _before he grasped a little piece of parchment as it fluttered out from between the pages. 

_You know where I am if you need to talk. _ _Just send a coin message.   
-HG_

Draco sat down to read immediately. **  
**

* * *

**20th December, 1996 **

Granger had done it again.

He remembered the Yule Ball with both horror and fondness - and not entirely for the reasons one might typically anticipate. He had been entirely humiliated by Pansy, shrieking and clinging onto him like a limpet for most of the night, too afraid to let him out of her taloned grasp for more than a moment. He had also been decidedly cold-shouldered by Viktor Krum who, despite attending Durmstrang, had elected to escort one Hermione Granger, Muggle-born, to the ball. 

And she’d looked nothing at all like herself. In fact, had he not known better, he would have pitched her to be a pureblood heiress with the way she spoke and conducted herself in formal company. She’d worn a sort of blueish dress that floated around her feet as she walked, a gauzy covering over her shoulders; Pansy had insisted that the ‘periwinkle’ shade had made the girl look sallow, but Draco hadn’t noticed it at all. Instead, he realised how delicate she was, how heart-shaped her face was once her hair had been pulled up in some intricate style that she couldn’t have achieved without magic. In retrospect, her ‘upper-middle class’ upbringing, as she’d called it, rather cleared up the dissonance he experienced when comparing her behaviours to her ‘place’ as he had considered it. 

This time, however, she wore pink. 

A pretty, knee-length pink dress that warmed the summer tan she still carried to a golden glow; a dainty pearl necklace at her throat; her wild hair slightly tamed and half-pinned with little pearl clips. His mother would have deemed it a worthy outfit indeed for a young lady of standing. 

But staring at Hermione Granger was not what he was here to do. 

He was supposed to be leaving Slughorn a gift - a bottle of very old mead which she was certain would be re-gifted to Dumbledore in an effort to butter him up. This particular bottle just happened to contain very old, powerfully poisonous mead. However, that meant that he’d had to gatecrash this truly awful party, which he would have preferred to have avoided. 

Now he was stuck here, watching Granger suck face in her pretty pink dress with the great blond oaf, Cormac McLaggen. 

The only positive that Draco could find was that she didn’t appear to be enjoying it overmuch. It was a meagre positive at that, because he was now stuck holding a clandestine conversation with one Harry Potter. 

“Malfoy,” Potter spoke, slipping behind the ridiculous gauzy curtain. “What are you doing here?” 

“A second attempt - a _ safer _ attempt. Entirely Granger-approved.” 

Potter didn’t look happy, but nodded anyway, distracted. “I hate the way he’s pawing at her. She wanted to go with Ron just so McLaggen would leave her alone, but he’d already asked Lav-Lav,” Potter made a gagging noise, and Draco sympathised entirely. 

“I saw you came with Lovegood. At least she’s entertaining.” 

“She’s a good friend to have,” Potter agreed. “Oh, here comes… Quick, behind here ‘Mione.” Potter hissed, and dragged her through the curtain into their ever-growing circle of people-who-should-not-be-seen-together-at-a-party. 

“Draco - did you do it?” Granger asked breathlessly, grimacing as she wiped her lips. 

“Yes, but now I need to get caught.” 

He and Hermione both looked at Potter, who rolled his eyes. “What? Can’t a bloke have a perfectly civil conversation with his arch-nemesis?” 

“Er… Voldemort, Harry?” Hermione raised her brows, and Draco coughed to hide the small laugh. 

“Fine: second place arch-nemesis.”

“Can we just get it over with? I told Cormac I was getting some punch, but I really would like to leave as soon as possible so I never have to… he kisses like a _flobberworm_, good Godric, and he thinks he’s _ good_,” she winced. 

_ Nice one, McLaggen_, Draco thought with a smirk. “Oh? It looked like you were having a positively delightful time trapped under that mistletoe.” 

“I loathe you,” Hermione said cheerfully yet with a noticeable blush, before grabbing him and Potter by the robes and shoving them into the room through the curtain. “Make it look convincing.” 

Draco and Potter eyed each other before shrugging, then started bickering earnestly with a few solid shoves thrown in for good measure. By the time they’d been separated and Severus hauled Draco off, Granger and her pretty pink dress had long-since disappeared from the party, leaving poor McLaggen stranded. 

“Tough luck, mate,” Draco muttered vindictively as he passed, a hand firmly guiding him by his shoulder, and he felt a surge of intense satisfaction when he glanced back at the boy’s crestfallen face as he was escorted from the room. Her pretty dress had done nothing to deserve such mistreatment. 

* * *

**3rd January, 1997**

“So, Harry needs to get a memory from Slughorn and we’ve not had much luck. He’s doctored the one Harry and Dumbledore need so that it shows what Slughorn wants people to believe,” Hermione collapsed in the chair next to him in the Room of Requirement, and Draco’s brows rose as she ran a hand over the top of her curls in a fruitless attempt to tame them. 

“Well, hello to you too; I’ve had a fantastic Christmas, thanks, with Auntie Bella breathing down my neck every morning, noon, and night about how I’ll bring _ glory _ and _ honour _ to the Malfoy name once more, considering the failures of my father.” Draco rolled his eyes as he spoke, spitting out the word ‘father’ with a little more venom than he anticipated. 

“Oh, Draco, she’s just a mad old witch,” Hermione said as she waved a hand to brush away the thought. “She’s just doing it to try and get a rise out of you.” 

Draco rolled his eyes again, but felt a swell of hope at her optimism. “Perhaps, but she’s also a very powerful mad old witch. I’d prefer never to be on the receiving end of her Cruciatus if I can bloody well help it.” 

Hermione tilted her head to look at him, a slight smile on her face that made her eyes crease just a little at the corners and warm her irises to honey. “Still - I’m right, you know.” 

At that moment, Draco could have sworn that Hermione Granger, swot extraordinaire, looked almost pretty - with her firelit skin and mountain of curls piled up in a messy bun atop her head. The thought choked him and he blinked rapidly, looking away, forcing a ghost of a sneer onto his face.

“You were saying about old Sluggy?” 

“Yes - yes.” She looked vaguely startled by the sudden change in tone. “Well, he’s got a memory we need. Apparently, he’s got _ something _ to do with Voldemort’s power and how he maintains it. It’s very hush-hush, very, _ very _ dark.” Hermione appeared troubled, her brown eyes clouded and hooded as she rapped her knuckles on the arm of her chair. 

“He’ll need sucking up to. Potter’s already doing a damn good job with his sudden, rapid improvement in potions,” Draco scoffed. “How’s he even doing it, anyway?” 

“He has a book,” Hermione said primly, agitation apparent in her suddenly stiff posture. “An old textbook. Belonged to someone who calls himself a half-blood prince or some rot.” 

Draco choked on a hacking cough. “The Half-Blood Prince, is that it? Are you sure?” 

“It says it in the front cover, Malfoy, and I’m perfectly capable of reading.” 

Draco felt the cracking smile form on his lips. “That’s absolutely, brilliantly, priceless.” 

Hermione sat forward, expression suddenly brighter and her melancholy obviously had faded at least a little. “Oh? Do you know who it belonged to?” 

“Obviously,” Draco drawled, leaning back in the chair, catlike. “And so do you. Really, Granger - you don’t recognise the handwriting? You’ve stared at it on chalkboards for six years now.” 

Hermione’s brows furrowed, and then raised higher and higher as realisation dawned, her mouth hanging open. “Oh, you have _ got _ to be kidding me!” 

“Nope,” His lips popped on the ‘p’, and he laughed outright as she started to launch books into her bag at an ungodly pace. “Granger, relax. It’s not like he’s going to find out, is it? And Potter clearly needs all the help he can get. Let him live a little - it’s not like he actually understands why he’s so good and what changes have been made.” 

Hermione visibly deflated, and sagged back into her chair with as close to a pout as he had ever seen on her face. “Oh, I suppose. It’s just - well, it’s cheating, isn’t it? It’s not like he’s actually _ learning _ from it.” 

“You will, though,” Draco pointed out. “You could borrow it. Actually, I bet he’s already told me half of it so I could probably teach you the short-cuts anyway - that’d get up Potter’s nose.” 

Hermione paused, apparently contemplating the offer, before she shook her head. “No - it’s better this way. I suppose if Professor Slughorn thinks Harry is some sort of prodigy like his mum, then it’ll just help him get an in with him, won’t it?” 

“Maybe. Father always said -” Draco stopped abruptly and brought a hand up reflexively to chew on his nails before he dropped it, swallowing hard. “Erm, yes. Slughorn is an old blow-hard; if you butter him up enough he’ll be eating out of the palm of your hand. Or… I mean, if he’s not used it… there’s the vial of Felix he won.”

“I think he’s saving it for if _ something _ happens,” Hermione said, volume increasing as she fired herself up for what was clearly going to be a rant - blessedly missing his nervous twitch. “_Something_, honestly! But I’ll pass that on - try to get him to take it seriously. Right now he’s just pratting about like it’s all one big game! He’s more serious about Quidditch, for Merlin’s sake!” 

“Granger,” Draco cleared his throat pointedly, nodding towards her pocket where a small whorl of smoke circled upward as it escaped the fabric. 

“And he’s not taken back up with his Occlumency, and -” 

“Hermione!” Draco shouted, stopping her in her tracks as her mass of curls became wilder, the ends seeming to spark with static and friction and magic as they escaped her bun. “Calm down, will you, before you blow your wand out.” 

“Oh!” Hermione cried, patting at her pocket where he pointed to the smoke that was seeping through the material. “Oh, bugger it. I’m sorry, Draco. I’m in a foul mood.” 

“I know that feeling,” he reached over to put out a spark that had reached the arm of the chair, and saw a tiny black singe mark in the well-worn upholstery. “Speaking of our esteemed Defence teacher - I spoke to Severus just before Christmas break, after that blasted party.” 

“Oh? After your spectacularly choreographed fight, you mean?” Hermione grinned at him, flashing the perfectly straight white teeth he’d once mercilessly teased her for. 

_ After you spent half an hour being snogged by that brainless oaf McLaggen, more like_, Draco thought with a scowl he couldn’t prevent. That was a show he could have absolutely done without. The memory of Hermione - _ Granger, _he scolded himself - being unceremoniously felt up under some enchanted mistletoe that she couldn’t escape was bitter and unpleasant. He pushed the feeling aside - not to examine later, not to even contemplate - and dove forward. 

“There’s a mark on his wrist - a light red line, you mightn’t have noticed it - but I was certain it was from an Unbreakable Vow. I asked him about it.” 

“What did he say?” She looked pensive then, leaning forward to cross her arms on the arm of the chair and to rest her chin in the space between them. 

Draco shrugged, suddenly desperate to look anywhere but at Herm - Granger’s face. “That I had a good eye, and that it was a promise to my mother to… to keep me safe. To do what I’m supposed to do if I can’t follow through for any reason.” 

“Did you tell him? About… about us?” She gestured vaguely between them, and then out towards the corridor where he assumed Potter and Weasley were standing guard. 

“Would you be angry if I did?” 

“Not at all, Draco. He’s your Godfather, after all. And he’s… well, if you’ve spoken to him about us I presume you already know about him being...” She trailed off, biting her lip. Draco told himself firmly not to focus on her face at all, and certainly not on the lips she was biting in uncertain anxiety - painfully endearingly. 

And not on how she looked in the pretty pink dress, the last time he’d seen her.

“He’s a spy.” Draco finished, nodding, looking over her shoulder at something in the distance to keep himself distracted from her face. “He said he was working with the Order of the Phoenix - that he was glad someone had ‘prevented me from going down the same bitter path he had trodden for too long’.” He quoted, deepening his voice, and Hermione - Granger, damnit - giggled. _ Giggled. _

Giggling had never been a sound he’d found at all appealing - the sickening howl of Pansy Parkinson still ringing in his ears - but damn if Hermione didn’t make it sound entirely too enticing. 

“That was an _ awful _ impression, Draco Malfoy.” She continued to giggle in fits between words, sitting up only to double over again as another wave of laughter hit her. 

“It was, rather,” he admitted wryly, and chuckled himself along with her. “C’mon, Granger. We need to do some more work on this stupid bloody cabinet.” 

“Oh - yes! I found a book in the library yesterday afternoon. It isn’t about Vanishing Cabinets per se, but - well, you’ll see. I think there’s some promising spells we can try…” 

He let himself sink into the prim, excitable voice that accompanied Hermione’s lecturing. It was a distraction enough, despite their activities - something familiar. He could ignore everything: the Dark Lord, his family, the pressure… and the way he _ hated _ Cormac McLaggen more than he had any right to. 

Unfortunately, the hammering on the door behind them cut their time short. 

“Malfoy, ‘Mione - Crabbe and Goyle are coming round. We’re coming in.” Potter called through the door, panic lacing his voice, and Draco barely had time to allow the Room to admit them before they shot in and slammed the door behind them. Weasley shoved his wand towards the lock with a basic - but probably sturdy enough considering his opponents - locking charm, and sagged against the dark wood with a sigh.

“Well, isn’t this cosy,” Draco muttered, leaning back against the old bookcase that rocked ominously behind him. 

“Piss off, Malfoy. We’ve been doing you a favour - to help you kill Professor Dumbledore, mind - so could you do _us_ a favour and stop whinging?” 

“Harry, we’re not actually trying to -” 

Harry sat down heavily on the old sofa, joined almost immediately by Ron. “I know, I know. It’s just… it’s getting worse. And… look, Malfoy, have you heard of something called a Horcrux before?” 

He had, in fact, heard of Horcruxes - even if it was in hushed whispers behind raised hands. Draco blanched.

“Please, tell me that he hasn’t done it,” Draco begged, and turned to Hermione for some sort of assurance that it was all a grand joke. She opened her mouth to speak, but then she simply shook her head, her teeth burrowing into her plump bottom lip so hard he was sure it would bleed, twisting her fingers together and cracking her knuckles in agitated pops.

Harry nodded, looking particularly grim. “He has. We just don’t know how he learned about it… or how many.” 

“Hence the memory from… really? You think _ Slughorn _ knows?” Draco asked, disbelieving entirely that the old walrus knew anything about magic _ that _ dark. Hell, he only knew of it in the vaguest terms, and his family library was drowning in books about the darkest magics imaginable.  
  
“Oh, he absolutely knows what they are - I saw him in his fake memory where he told Voldemort not to go looking into it. But Dumbledore thinks…” 

“...That he actually told him.” Draco finished, closing his eyes and running a hand over his face. Horror swam in his stomach, sent shivers down his spine, caused the little hairs on his arms to raise. “Of course he does - because he’s got proof of at least one.” 

Hermione nodded. “Yes. The Basilisk, in second year? It was controlled by one of his Horcruxes through Ginny Weasley.” 

“And if you don’t destroy them all?” Draco asked, already knowing the answer. 

“Then he can come back.” Hermione confirmed and Harry nodded along with her. 

“Neither can live whilst the other survives,” Ron offered, his face drawn, heavy shadows under his eyes. “The prophecy between Harry and You-Know-Who.” 

Suddenly, everything he was doing had become significantly more important - and something Severus had told him the night of the Christmas party was information he absolutely had to share. It put Harry, and by extension the rest of them, under a time-crunch that they couldn’t have possibly anticipated. 

They had until summer to get to the bottom of what Slughorn knew… and what the Headmaster himself was aware of. Because after that summer, unless something drastically changed, the three Gryffindors before him would probably not be coming back to Hogwarts. 

“There’s something you need to know about Dumbledore,” Draco began, and watched as the three faces before him became grimmer and grimmer as he explained just how much trouble they were all in. 

“We’re fucked, then,” Weasley said glumly, his heels kicking against the floor. “Without Dumbledore… we’re totally fucked.”

Draco couldn’t help but agree. 


End file.
